The U.S. risks losing a once-decisive edge over China in biotechnology unless the federal government prioritizes the sector’s advancement with new funding and policies, a bipartisan commission warned in a report issued Tuesday.
At minimum, the commission wrote, the U.S. should invest at least $15 billion over the next five years to strengthen the country’s biotech capabilities. It also called for a more “proactive” government strategy, including the establishment of a new National Biotechnology Coordination Office within the White House.
“China is quickly ascending to biotechnology dominance, having made biotechnology a strategic priority for 20 years,” the report states. “To remain competitive, the United States must take swift action in the next three years. Otherwise, we risk falling behind, a setback from which we may never recover.”
The report was authored by the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, which was established by Congress through defense appropriations legislation in 2022. Made up of 11 members, including lawmakers from both parties, the commission has spent the past two years studying the state of biotechnology competition between the U.S. and other countries, particularly China. Its recommendations are meant to provide the foundation for legislation, much as work by an earlier commission helped pave the way for the 2022 CHIPS Act, which was aimed at semiconductor manufacturing and research.
“The United States is locked in a competition with China that will define the coming century,” said commission chair and Senator Todd Young, R-Ind., in a statement on the report’s release. “Biotechnology is the next phase in that competition.”
Young and the rest of the commission take alarm at the rapid acceleration of China’s biotech capabilities, which they ascribe to its government’s industrial policies as well as to the advent of new artificial intelligence tools that China has adopted quickly.
They cite the strength of Chinese companies like WuXi AppTec, a contract manufacturer targeted in legislation that was proposed but ultimately dropped last year. And they warn that the Chinese government’s close involvement in biotech could lead to policies designed to strategically weaken the U.S.
“We must not treat Chinese state-run companies as ordinary competitors in our market, even if it means using more expensive alternatives,” the report states.
In response, the commission detailed dozens of recommendations to bolster U.S. biotech. Notably, it calls for Congress to establish an “Independence Investment Fund” to support new startups, as well as to direct the development of a network of precommercial bioindustrial manufacturing facilities.
It also recommends outbound investment rules to “ensure that U.S. capital does not support Chinese development” of biotechnologies that come with national security risks. Such rules could potentially complicate U.S. companies’ licensing of experimental new drugs developed by Chinese firms, although the report doesn’t specifically suggest barring these kind of deals.
Yet the commission’s call for greater biotech investment comes at a moment when the Trump administration has ordered drastic cuts to research funding and sweeping layoffs across agencies that oversee biotech regulation, most prominently at the Food and Drug Administration. And the commissioners urge the U.S. to leverage its ability to attract talented scientists to its “open innovation ecosystem” just as the administration has sparked widespread alarm in academia by revoking student visas and targeting universities.
U.S. companies are also watching carefully to see whether the Trump administration targets pharmaceuticals with sector-specific tariffs. The sector was exempted from the new duties President Donald Trump rolled out April 2, but taxing imports could be part of White House efforts to spur investment in U.S. biomanufacturing.
“The pharmaceutical companies are going to come roaring back,” Trump said in a White House address on April 2, during which he cited recent investments by Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson to build new U.S. plants.
